O'Donnell: Kevin Warren's Bears stadium standup already drawing chuckles in Arlington Heights
FOR AN "AT RISK" SUBURB, Arlington Heights is somehow maintaining a remarkable civic placidity.
Children still play. Birds sing. Stentorian trustee Jim Tinaglia - an ambitious architect by trade - continues to eyeball the role of future village president.
All while rookie Bears President Kevin Warren carries on like a clerk at a busy bakery - encouraging possible new municipal homes of a Bears stadium to take a number.
More rational residents of AH mildly chuckle.
When Warren appears at the 350-seat Metropolis Performing Arts Centre in Arlington Heights later this month, no one is certain whether he'll be selling, attempting to scare or merely doing 55 minutes of standup NFL schmockery.
If the winds of Bear-down irony are blowing in, Warren might wind up looking like the "scaramouche" in classic Italian commedia dell'arte.
That was the stock buffoon, predictable only in his stock buffoonery.
IN APPROACH, "SPECIAL K" is determined to maximize franchise profits before a commitment to build at Arlington Park is announced.
From the Bears side, bully for him.
From the coherent public side, his credibility is sagging.
The Bears own 326 acres of choice, developable land in only one municipality in the Chicago metropolitan statistical area.
And that's in Arlington Heights.
ON TOP OF THAT, according to Chris Placek of The Daily Herald, deconstruction of the main grandstand building at AP will likely begin "within days."
That is the foulest of deeds on the cynical checklist of Churchill Downs Inc. to get out of Arlington as free and clean as possible.
And they contractually left that up to the Bears and their hod carriers to get done.
That's an imaging "win" for Bunker Bill Carstanjen and his Louisville highwaymen at CDI.
And a punishing diminishment for George McCaskey and the Bears, especially if they go even more inept and wind up reselling the prime Arlington land.
FORTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK, Dick Duchossois and associates Joe Joyce, Sheldon Robbins and Ralph Ross were accelerating their conversations to purchase Arlington Park from Gulf & Western.
The deal had a few anxiety moments along its brief path, but was finally announced in August 1983.
Ross, the minority financier in the consortium, is its sole surviving member.
On Wednesday, he told The Daily Herald: "I still don't understand why the Bears didn't listen to our offer to lease and race at Arlington last year, this year and as far ahead until they make their final call on whether or not to build on the site.
"It would have guaranteed them passive income, gave them all the 'think time' they needed and produced a seamless transition to whatever comes next.
"Instead, we're looking at the teardown of the magnificent building and they are still saying they don't know what they're going to do or where they're going to build.
"It is so 'Chicago Bears.' So much is so very unnecessary."
MAYBE KEVIN WARREN can address that during his 55 minutes of standup at the Metropolis.
As designated scaramouche, he'll be playing an "at risk" suburb that just isn't buying what his tax bake-off is trying to sell.
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UPDATING MONTHLY NIELSEN AUDIOS on Chicago's two laggard sports talk radio stations is like monitoring car-by-car I-PASS deductions on the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway.
It's numbing. It's repetitive. It's about as exciting as Dan Bernstein doing the one-man "An Evening with Barry Schenk" at the Northlight Theatre.
For the 3,000th month, according to the May report released this week, Mitch Rosen and WSCR-AM (670) lolled home 13th in the market.
ESPN-AM (1000) - the default new radio home of the pounds-foolish Bears - waddled in tied for 23rd.
Both stations add new dimension to the word "turgid." Their combined fresh numbers - "The Score," 2.9; AM-1000, 1.6 - are more than matched by single sports talk powerhouses in other major markets.
Among them: KTCK-AM in Dallas-Fort Worth (#1 with a 6.6), WBZ-FM in Boston (#1 with an 8.3) and WXYT-FM in Detroit (#2 with a 7.6).
In tandem, the two Chicago sports talk bores are a compelling argument why global auto manufacturers should never again put AM radios in cars.
Or in the earbuds of anyone under the age of 65.
STREET-BEATIN':
NBC Sports will be all-out with its coverage of the U.S. Open from the snooty Los Angeles Country Club beginning Thursday. With any kind of luck, LIV-stained Brooks Koepka will get lost in a barranca and never be heard from again. Crescendo will come Sunday night when the Peacock Network airs the final holes live, in prime-time, with silent commercial sponsorship by Rolex. ...
Jimmy Garoppolo did not participate in any on-field Raiders OTAs but is said to be approaching full health. His deal with Las Vegas is loaded with team-favoring "outs" if he gets hurt again. In 10 NFL seasons, the pride of Arlington Heights has completed only 1 full campaign as a starter, leading SF to a loss in Super Bowl 54 three years ago. ...
Layoffs at The Athletic are disturbing almost all in the national sports media community. No one wants to see The New York Times holding fail. A brutal trim locally was that of White Sox beat man James Fegan. He has been solid and respected and will hopefully bounce back quickly. ...
FOX's first try at covering the Belmont Stakes was Flop City. Absolute worst was that Tom Durkin's call of the final half of the classic - six furlongs - was nothing but muffled audio. Except for the place finish of Larry Rivelli's Chicago-based Two Phil's in the Kentucky Derby, the 2023 Triple Crown sequence was complete nowheresville. ...
And heat-seeking regional real estate wiz David Trandel, on the next community likely to emerge as a leveraging stooge for the new Bears stadium: "I've got to say Decatur, roots and all. Bring back the Staleys!"
• Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears three days each week, including Sunday and Thursday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications will be considered for publication.